Swerve
by Crystalteen
Summary: Three people in two different cars ... and it only took one second to change all of their lives forever. One-Shot.


**A/N: Hey, my fantastic viewers. I hope all of you are doing well. :)**

 **Now, in case any of you are wondering, this one-shot is centered around a serious issue. I'm _not_ trying to damage how any of feel about "The Outsiders" or anything like that, but I believe that it'll help get my point across. While on the road, I've seen many people talking and texting on their phones. There were even some cases when members of my family and I were almost hit because other drivers weren't paying attention. Texting while driving _is_ a big deal.**

 **So, this one-shot focuses on how important it is to make the correct decisions while you are behind the wheel, as well as the dangerous outcomes of what could happen if you're distracted. Also, I'm definitely aware that "The Outsiders" took place in the 1960's, meaning cell phones weren't invented yet. Nonetheless, in this one-shot, I make up that they did exist back then.**

 **This one-shot also takes place before the book.**

 **I do _not_ own "The Outsiders." All rights to this amazing book and its characters goes to its author, S.E. Hinton. **

**Summary: Three different people in two different cars ... and it only took one second to change their lives forever.**

 **Warning : This is rated T for Teen because it contains graphic scenes, including bloodshed and some language.**

 **Please share your thoughts in the reviews or you can PM them to me! I love feedback!**

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Two-Bit's POV

Mom had given me permission to drive the car today. Normally, I would've been able to grab the keys and take a ride through the streets of Tulsa whenever I liked, as long as I told her where I was going; but after I got dragged down to the principal's office for threatening two Socs - Bob Sheldon and his sidekick, Randy Adderson, - my mom grounded me for two weeks. There would be no TV, no chocolate cake, and no visits to the Dingo, the drive-in, or the Curtis residents. Instead, I was only allowed to use the car to drive to school and back home, where I was then expected to finish a boatload of extra chores and be in bed by 9:15.

But today, Mom made an exception. Today was Ponyboy's track meet, and since his parents weren't around to cheer him on like they always did before the auto-wreck, he was going to need as much encouragement as possible from the gang. Even Darry called his boss to ask for the day off, and Dally - who swore he would _never_ step foot near the high school again ever since he dropped out - reluctantly agreed to attend. So, my mom - and that soft spot in her loving heart - made a deal with me: I could go to Pony's track meet as long as I took my fourteen-year-old sister, Karen, with me. Not only that, but my grounding would resume as soon as the meet ended.

Karen might have not been a fan of track or any sports in general, but she had the _hugest_ crush on Ponyboy and loved taking every opportunity to see him. The two of them were pretty good friends, but Karen wasn't the type of girl who openly admitted to having feelings for anyone. She denied having a crush on Pony at least fifteen times each day, but I knew her better than the back of my own hand. Ever since our old man left when her third birthday was right around the corner, our family bond seemed to grow stronger with every passing day. As cheesy as it might've sounded, Karen was my best friend. I loved her more than anyone else in my life; and I was willing to do anything to keep her safe.

I had my window rolled down, filling the car with the scents of recently cut grass and fresh flowers. The radio was switched over to a station that provided an endless list of Elvis and Rolling Stones songs, but the radio was so old to the point where the rhythm was choppy and most of the lyrics were being skipped over. Although, when you're a Mathews, it was better to ride with some type of music playing than just riding in complete silence.

The comfortable breeze whistled through my heavily greased hair as I stared straight ahead, refusing to break my attention away from the road. I've seen enough drag races in my life to know just how dangerous other drivers could be. I'm not saying that I've never made dumb decisions while being behind the wheel, but I sure as hell wasn't planning on putting my kid sister's life at risk. I already learned my lesson when my ex, Kathy, broke up with me over this stupid prank I decided to pull while driving her back home from the drive-in.

Karen was in the passenger's seat, scrolling through her cell phone with her feet prompt up on the dashboard. She was wearing her best blue skirt, which reached down to the tops of her knees and had its hem decorated with mostly tarnished rhinestones. Aside from that, she had on a bright yellow T-shirt that advertised a picture of Minnie Mouse's smiling face and her favorite denim jacket that had most of its buttons missing. The bracelet that I had got her for her birthday last month was around her wrist, its charms softly jingling together with every small bump the car rode over. And lastly, her long, rusty red curls were pulled back and - with the help of our mom - styled into a slightly frizzy braid that reached down to the middle of her shoulder blades.

Approaching a stop sign, I carefully pressed down on the break and noticed Karen's thumbs clicking away at her phone from the corner of my eye.

"Who are you texting?" I asked as I glanced around, making sure that there were no other incoming vehicles. I swear, I've never studied anything so hard in my entire life.

"Charlotte." Karen replied, refusing to rip her eyes away from the tiny screen in her hands. Charlotte Mitchell has been Karen's best friend ever since the two of them were in diapers. "She's going on and on about how excited she is for her and Shane's Three-Month-Anniversary next weekend."

"Explain to me, Karen," I cocked an eyebrow in confusion, still examining the streets, "how exactly can three months be an anniversary?"

Karen, after sending her most recent text, turned her head and looked at me. "Well, Keith," she said as a playful smirk curled up on the corners of her lips, "if you got a girlfriend for more than three minutes, you would already know the answer to that question."

"Don't be such a smartass." I said with a small snort. With all of the people that I had in my life, I only allowed my mom and Karen to call me by my real name. "In case you've forgotten, mine and Kathy's relationship lasted longer than my previous one with Stephanie."

Karen rolled her eyes a little. "You know I love you, Keith, but I'm not going to lie. That 'prank' you pulled on Kathy was pretty messed up." A small _ding_ came from her phone, luring all of her attention back in on the tiny screen in the blink of an eye.

"I'll admit," I groaned and started driving again, keeping my eyes on the road, "it was stupid of me to pretend that the brakes weren't working while we were approaching traffic; but it wasn't like I was actually _trying_ to get her to call everything that we had off."

"I know you weren't, Keith." Karen said. Although, her voice gave it away that half of her mind was lost in reading her most recent text. "By the way, I just remembered that I promised to go shopping with Jenny, Rachel, and Amanda tomorrow after school. We want to start looking for dresses to wear to the spring formal. Would it be okay if you drove me to the mall?"

"Yeah, sure," I answered with a small nod, "but keep in mind that if any guy asks you to be his date, he has to meet me and get my approval. Otherwise, he'll have to take his mother."

Just then, as Karen playfully rolled her eyes and scoffed, I heard the sound of something vibrating - my phone. It was lying in the recently cleaned ashtray that sat between the two front seats, the screen advertising the small picture of an envelope. I had a text.

"Hey, Karen," I said, "can you see who that is for me?"

"Depends." My sister chuckled a little, smirking again. After sending her message, she turned her head and looked at me. "Can you take me out for one of our big brother/little sister buffets at Dairy Queen after the track meet?"

A Chessy cat grin spread across my face. "I wish I could, but you know I'm grounded. Mom will ring me if I try to go against her orders."

Karen's smile wavered a little as she bit down on her bottom lip in thought. "I'll talk to her," she said with a simple shrug. Her wide grin began to restore. "I can convince her to let us hang out together for at least an extra hour."

My smile broadened, practically exposing all of my teeth. "Really? You'd actually do that?" I asked.

"Of course I would." Karen replied, the tone of her voice making it sound like I should've known that. "You're my brother, Keith. I'd do anything to help you out ... especially if it comes with the chance that you'll gamble for free hot fudge sundaes." She chuckled a little, keeping her eyes on her phone as she tucked a stray curl behind her ear.

"With whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles, and two cherries on top." I added, still wearing my ear-to-ear grin. "All right, baby sis, it's a deal. If you can convince Mom to let us stay out a little longer, I'll take you to Dairy Queen after the track meet. Now, can you please read my text for me?"

"Yeah, I got it." After Karen finished typing out her most recent text and sent it, she placed her phone down on her lap and picked mine up from the ashtray. Almost instantly, her cheeks grew pink and her smile stretched a little further across her face at the sight of the screen. "It's from Ponyboy. He wants to know if we're on our way because the meet is scheduled to start in fifteen minutes."

"We'll be there soon." For _just a second,_ I took my eyes off the road and glanced at my sister... "Would you mind texting him back to tell him-"

"OH MY GOD! KEITH!" Karen's eyes shot huge, swarming with terror and looking like they were about to explode out of her skull. She dropped my phone and flung her hands down, grabbing the arms of her seat with a steel grip. "LOOK OUT!"

Immediately, I could've sworn that I had a heart attack. I snapped my attention back in front front of me, gripping the steering wheel to the point where my knuckles felt like they were about to pop. My foot searched eagerly for the break, stomping repeatedly against the floor; but I was in shock. Fear filled my eyes, overflowing them as my jaw dropped. I was too scared - too caught off guard to scream. A bright blue Mustang was speeding directly towards us ... and it was the last thing I saw before I jerked the wheel around, causing my vehicle to take a sharp swerve. Everything was spinning, and an ear-splitting _CRASH_ echoed through the air, puncturing my eardrums. I flung forward and almost instantly snapped back, ramming the back of my head against my seat as my car toppled at the speed of lightning across the concrete.

The windshield, rearview mirror, and back windows practically exploded, sending hundreds of pointy shards all over the place. Another loud _CRASH_ reached up to the sky, accompanied by the sounds of tires screeching against the pavement and my kid sister's bloodcurdling screams. And then, everything went black...

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Pain was electrocuting through every inch of my body. I cracked my eyes open, releasing a string of small coughs as my vision flickered back and forth from blurry to clear. My cheek was stinging, smudged uncomfortably against the cold and rough concrete with dozens of broken pieces of glass surrounding me. I slowly rose my head, still coughing as the overpowering scents of burning rubber and smoke burned my nostrils. A huge, intensely burning scratch was torn clear through my skin, reaching all the way from the bottom of my wrist to the middle of my shoulder. My shoulders stung, covered in multiple cuts that were obviously in urgent need of stitches.

I was lying flat on my stomach, directly underneath my car. It was completely totaled - nothing but a large scrap of dented and destroyed metal. My seatbelt had snapped in the accident, but it had still managed to keep me in the driver's area.

Hot blood was smeared across my forehead, trickling down my face and causing my bangs to stick to my skin. My chest wavered, aching with every breath I drew in. I saw my cell phone. It was broken clear in half - one half crushed underneath the bent steering wheel and the other drenched in an intimidating puddle of blood.

"Shit..." I winced, feeling an insanely sharp pain rocket through my left set of ribs as I attempted to shift myself. "Oh, shit..." I winced again, knowing that I had a busted rib.

This couldn't have been happening ... this just _couldn't_ have been happening...

"...Karen?" I slowly turned my head towards the damaged passenger's seat, ignoring the feeling of blood leaking down the back of my neck ... but my kid sister wasn't there. My eyes instantly widened, and my voice grew much more eager. "Karen? Karen, where are you? Karen!" I've never been so horrified before in my entire life.

This _had_ to be a nightmare...

Suddenly, something caught my attention. A silver charm - designed to look like a heart that read 'To My Baby Sister With Love' - was lying against the blood-stained concrete. With the skin of my knuckles mostly peeled away and revealing the wetness of raw flesh, I drew in another shaky breath and reached out, picking the small charm up between my fingers to examine it closer. It was definitely one of the charms from Karen's bracelet.

"No..." I whispered as I continued to stare at the charm. A small drop of blood was smeared across the word 'Sister'. "No, Karen ... no, no..."

Despite the massive amount of pain that I was in, I clutched the charm in my hand and used my other to push myself up onto my knees. Multiple shards of pointy glass sliced across my palm and fingers, making it feel like fire was licking at my skin. There was a large and bloody rip in my jeans, starting from the middle of my knee and finishing at the top of my aching ankle. A five-inch piece of the windshield wiper's broken blade was buried in my shin, making me clench my teeth and groan loudly. I tried to fight the tears that were beginning to brim in the corners of my eyes.

"Dammit ... shit, shit..." I grabbed the top of the blade and ripped it out of my wound, causing me to take in a sharp inhale. "Ah, damn!" I tossed the chunk of blade aside and coughed a few more times as I crawled out from underneath the wrecked car. The driver's side of the vehicle was completely compressed against the road, but the passenger's door had been torn right off its hinges, providing me a way out. "Karen?" I called out again, ignoring the major headache that was triggered by the brightness of the sunlight. "Baby sis, talk to me! Where are you?"

I anxiously turned my head from left to right ... and that's when I saw her. She was lying motionlessly on her back in the middle of the road, at least a mile away from the car with a large splatter of red liquid encircling her. Swerving tire tracks were burned into the concrete, accompanied by the pale orange pieces of glass from busted headlights and one of my sister's shoes. My eyes shot gigantic, feeling like they were seconds away from popping out of my head.

"Karen! Karen!" I pushed myself up onto my feet, shoving as much of the pain aside as I could. "Baby sis, hang in there, all right? Two-Bit's coming." I let out a small, tearful laugh and began to uneasily jog down the road, already expecting the worse. When I made it to where Karen's shoe was lying, I bent down and picked it up; but I refused to take my eyes away from her. A shard of glass was sliced into the front where her toes would be, and there was a small puddle of blood surrounding it.

"I'm almost there, Karen ... I'm almost there. Just hang on..." The tears increased in my eyes, growing hotter.

This _wasn't_ real ... it _couldn't_ have been real...

By the time I reached where my sister was lying ... I could've sworn that I felt my heart shatter. Her clothes were completely torn up and splattered in blood; Minnie Mouse's face was in shreds, exposing a majority of Karen's stomach that was covered in hundreds of long scratches - as though she was attacked by a vicious animal. Another piece of the windshield wiper's blade - this one looking about three inches longer than mine - was buried deeply into a gaping wound on her left thigh. A river of blood was pooling out of her nose and her bottom lip was busted. Not only that, but a huge gash was slashed into her face, stretching all the way from her temple to the bottom of her jaw. Her arms were stretched out from the rest of her body, covered in more claw-like scratches; and her right leg looked practically mutated. It was in an unnatural position, snapped at the knee with most of the skin peeled away. Some white streaks of bone were revealed, along with bright red patches of bleeding flesh.

Her greenish/grayish eyes were wide open ... but there was absolutely _no_ life in them. That bright, humorous, happy-go-lucky glint was _gone._ Instead, they were completely glassy and disoriented, resembling two terrified marbles.

My stomach practically dropped down to the ground. I flew my free hand up to my mouth and collapsed onto my knees, landing directly beside Karen's side.

"No ... no, Karen! No!" My voice cracked when I said my baby sister's name. I clenched my eyes shut and shook my head repeatedly, hoping to death that this was just some god-awful dream that I was going to wake up from at any second. However, when I opened my eyes back up, I still saw Karen's limp body right in front of me. "Karen, listen to me! Karen, can you hear me?" With the hand that wasn't clutching her shoe, I touched her bloody shoulder and shook her. "Please answer me! _Please!_ " At the sight of her eyes still staring off into space and her head lifelessly bobbing, I broke down and bawled. I couldn't hold back the tears anymore. By this point, they were pouring down my face like a waterfall.

"This _can't_ be happening!" I choked out through my sobs. After that, I snaked one arm underneath my kid sister's legs and I looped the other around her back. "Karen, _please_ wake up! You _can't_ be dead, you just _can't_ be! You have so much more to do in your life! So much more to live for! Please don't leave me!" I hauled her body up into my arms and stood back up, watching her arms sway at her sides as blood dripped down to the concrete from a large cut on her bare foot. Her ankle was terribly swollen and a large black circle was already beginning to form around her left eye. "Karen, no ... please don't go..." I started to whimper like a homeless puppy, just as the tears continued to pile up in my eyes.

I noticed her cell phone on the ground. The screen was flickering, but I could still make out the number that she had been dialing. She really _was_ getting ready to call Mom to convince her to let us hang out...

My left side felt heavier than my right, indicating that my broken rib was in need of attention as soon as possible. With a sharp breath, I turned around and began to take baby steps back down the street, still carrying Karen in my arms. I needed to get help, but I immediately froze in my tracks at the sight of something else at the far end of the road. It was the bright blue Mustang that had broke the speed limit and slammed into my car, _causing_ the accident that _took my baby sister's life._ The hood of the Mustang had slammed into a lamppost, wrecking the hood and causing smoke to pour out of it. One of the headlights had also popped out of place, but the other one was completely smashed.

In the blink of an eye, anger flared up inside of me like a wildfire. Even in the damaged condition that it was in, I recognized that car perfectly. My bottom lip wobbled as the tears continued to rain down my cheeks. I wobbled as fast as I could, holding Karen's body close to mine as I approached the bright blue Mustang. The driver - a Soc - was still strapped in his seat by his seatbelt, but his eyes were bugged out, red-rimmed, and overflowing with tears. He was hyperventilating, still holding onto the steering wheel with a solid grip as he stared at the busted windshield. His nose was bleeding, there was a medium-length cut etched across his forehead, and a wicked bruise was already beginning to form on his cheek.

He slowly turned his head, and immediately after he saw me standing right outside his car with my _dead_ sister in my arms, he adverted his eyes and let out a horrified yelp. It was Randy Adderson.

I sharply narrowed my eyes, piercing him with rage as I screamed out at the top of my lungs, "LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID!"

Randy instantly let out a sob and ripped his hands away from the wheel. Some of the blood from his nose dripped down onto his solid white polo shirt, staining it.

"LOOK AT WHAT YOU DID TO MY BABY SISTER!" I bellowed, and at the mention of Karen, my voice cracked a little again.

"I'm so-" Randy attempted to speak, but he was cut off by another bawl escaping from his throat. His voice was influenced by sniffles as he eventually caught his breath long enough to choke out, "I-I'M SO S-SORRY!"

"YOU SON OF A BITCH! YOU KILLED HER! _YOU KILLED HER!_ " I screamed through my sobs. My tears started to fall even faster, leaking off my face and splashing against Karen's cheeks and neck. "YOU TOOK HER AWAY FROM ME!"

Randy ran his hands through his hair and bawled out, "I-I DIDN'T M-MEAN TO!" The mixture of shock, fear, and guilt was evident in his voice, but I was too choked up on my own emotions to care.

"YOU TOOK HER AWAY FROM ME!" My whole body started to tremble, aching in intense pain as I clenched my watery eyes shut and ran one of my hands through Karen's hair. The air became choked with nothing but the sounds of me and Randy bawling; but when I cracked my eyes open, I noticed through the blurriness of my tears that in one of his hands, Randy was holding his cell phone. The screen had been cracked in the accident, but I could still make out the words that were on it...

 _Don't worry, Bob. I'm almost th_

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 **A/N: Thank you all for taking the time to read this. Please share your thoughts in the reviews or you can PM them to me. I appreciate all of your feedback, so please feel free to share your opinions.**

 **This one-shot is dedicated to seven-month-old David** **Bingenheimer, who tragically lost his life in the hands of a careless driver. My prayers go out to the Bingenheimer family, for I believe their son is in a better place.**

 **Keep in mind, you're not just responsible for your life when you're behind the wheel. When you're driving, you're responsible for the lives of others that in the car with you and for all of the lives around you.**

 **While driving, wear your seatbelt and set aside all of the** **distractions.**

 **If you get a text while driving, have someone else in the car read it for you. If nobody is in the car with you, wait until you reach your destination. If it's serious, pull over.**

 **Remember, when you're behind the wheel, it only takes one second to change your life or someone else's forever. No glance is worth a life.**

 **It can wait.**

 **Again, I would like to thank you all for taking the time to read this. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the reviews or you can PM them to me. I love and appreciate all of the feedback. :) Thanks, everyone!**

 **Happy reading and writing to you all, my fantastic viewers. Stay gold and God bless. :)**


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